What do you make with a 29" swing?

[Rob Wyatt]

The other day I had the chance to pick up a large cookie from the crotch of a 3-trunk tree. My lathe has a 29" swing with the head turned to 90 degrees and I thought this would fit it after some shaping and thinning. But I could not imagine where a bowl or platter that large would go. Plus, 29" without a tailstock seems...challenging. For now I'll stick to stuff that fits over the bed and maybe I'll just flatten that cookie and make a table. Or section it for bowls. Some of the crotch grain looks amazing.

But now that 29" swing specification is rattling around my head like a bad song so I have to ask - what gets turned at that size? And where do you put it? Probably a failure of imagination, but all that comes to mind for me is a cosplay shield or wall art.

 

[Odie]

If done right, I can foresee someone wanting a very large centerpiece for a very large table.

-----odie-----

 

[robo hippy]

Live edge tables are a hot item now. That piece may not work well for a bowl or platter since it is end grain, and as it dries, it will crack off of the piths in there, but nice piece. Maybe a coffee table? You can put a planer bit on a router and make a sled for it, so you can level it out. Lots of You Tube videos about that.

robo hippy

 

[hockenbery]

Another vote for a table.

Endgrain needs thickness to not come apart.
If you were to turn a platter 1/4 “ thick - it would be likely to split under its own weight if lifted with one hand on the rim.

As it dries the cracks that have formed in the piths will grow. Filled with black epoxy they will become features.
The year to dry gives time to plan the turned legs or turned pedestal base.

 

[Mark Jundanian]

I think you are wise to avoid the temptation for the reasons that you and others state. Without knowing the model, I'm pretty confident the lathe manufacturer didn't mean it could swing 29" of a highly unbalanced load.

 

[Don Wattenhofer]

That piece is a disaster waiting to happen and I would bet that you can not find an example of an endgrain cookie even a single pith that didn't get at least one radial check. The reality of wood is that the 2 major shrinkage factors are radial and tangential with the result being the annual rings shrink such that the circumference of each ring is less than necessary thus the radial check. The presents of 3 piths in one cookie means checks everywhere which would require butterfly patches on top of patches.

 

[Brian Gustin]

That piece is a disaster waiting to happen and I would bet that you can not find an example of an endgrain cookie even a single pith that didn't get at least one radial check. The reality of wood is that the 2 major shrinkage factors are radial and tangential with the result being the annual rings shrink such that the circumference of each ring is less than necessary thus the radial check. The presents of 3 piths in one cookie means checks everywhere which would require butterfly patches on top of patches.

I think it kind of depends.. I have experimented a bit, and it seems you can greatly minimize the radial checking on cookies, if you can get it stabilized (That is, replace the water loss in the wood fibers with something else) - to that end, I actually took time to soak a (about 10 inch) cookie in a pan full of Formby's tung oil finish (a $15 experiment) overnight, then took it out and drip-dried it until the finish had fully cured (several weeks) , It still has not checked any further than what had already started before I finished planing (one side by hand with my Stanley No. 4 1/2, the other in a jury rigged router jig) - Granted a large cookie like that would get pretty expensive to stabilize in such a way (looks like several gallons of cactus juice or) but I'd bet it could make a nice tabletop, without having to do butterflies.. Granted, MY cookie has not had years (its only been 3 months so far) to see if it moves much and/or cracks, splits or whatever, but in 3 months, it has not changed (I turned it into a clock, and it is still right on time)

 

[john lucas]

I dried a 20" x 2 1/2" cookie by coating both sides with Anchorseal and storing it in an unheated part of my shop. It took a little over 2 years but dried without cracking. I dried slices off of a dogwood limb by putting them in zip lock bags and turning the bag inside out every day. They were 1/4" thick and took about 4 months to dry but a single one cracked.

 

[Rob Wyatt]

Thanks for all the responses. As I mentioned in the original post, I decided not to turn this piece. But all of the comments about why it's a bad idea have only served to pique my curiosity about the question I posed - what do people turn that's 29"? And where do you put it?

There isn't much natural wood available with a 29" diameter that isn't an end grain cookie, right? That narrows the feedstock possibilities considerably. So maybe just large segmented stuff. Great. It has capacity for a 29" segmented...what? I like @odie's proposal of "a very large centerpiece for a very large table" as the most likely candidate but even that is stretching it. I made a 16" platter only to discover that it feels cramped on our dining table that seats 8. Something approaching 29" would need King Arthur's Round Table. And they'd use it as a lazy Susan.



Over on YouTube, Olivier Gomis turned a bowl on this scale then proceeded to eat cereal out of it. Cute but not practical and we never find out what it was actually used for. The one project I've seen at this scale which was a useful object was when the same guy turned the bowl and base for a papasan chair.

I'm beginning to think this is one of those things where the manufacturer quotes the size mainly so they can have a bigger number than the next manufacturer. Like advertising that a street legal car can go 175mpg. Nice to brag about but in practical terms there's no difference between speed limit+80 vs speed limit+105 when advertising a street car to the general public. Maybe this is a similar case. Advertise 29" but virtually no customer actually uses that.

 

[hockenbery]

Large platters can use wall space instead of flat surfaces.
A friend turns some large platters some up to 36”. He puts a mounting on the back so they can be hung on the wall and they can always be displayed on a stand. Some just have a routed keyhole slot others various metal fixtures.

 

[Don Wattenhofer]

Thanks for all the responses. As I mentioned in the original post, I decided not to turn this piece. But all of the comments about why it's a bad idea have only served to pique my curiosity about the question I posed - what do people turn that's 29"? And where do you put it?

There isn't much natural wood available with a 29" diameter that isn't an end grain cookie, right? That narrows the feedstock possibilities considerably. So maybe just large segmented stuff. Great. It has capacity for a 29" segmented...what? I like @odie's proposal of "a very large centerpiece for a very large table" as the most likely candidate but even that is stretching it. I made a 16" platter only to discover that it feels cramped on our dining table that seats 8. Something approaching 29" would need King Arthur's Round Table. And they'd use it as a lazy Susan.

View attachment 43616

Over on YouTube, Olivier Gomis turned a bowl on this scale then proceeded to eat cereal out of it. Cute but not practical and we never find out what it was actually used for. The one project I've seen at this scale which was a useful object was when the same guy turned the bowl and base for a papasan chair.

I'm beginning to think this is one of those things where the manufacturer quotes the size mainly so they can have a bigger number than the next manufacturer. Like advertising that a street legal car can go 175mpg. Nice to brag about but in practical terms there's no difference between speed limit+80 vs speed limit+105 when advertising a street car to the general public. Maybe this is a similar case. Advertise 29" but virtually no customer actually uses that.

So it is obvious that you know the answer already.

 

[Mark Jundanian]

this is one of those things where the manufacturer quotes the size mainly so they can have a bigger number than the next manufacturer.

This is exactly what I was going to tell you.
I can't imagine ever turning something 29" in diameter, but I may someday turn something a little bigger than my 16" swing. Moreover, the rotating headstock has a lot of other uses.

 

[R Henrickson]

All of these comments seem to make two assumptions –
1) that what you turn must be circular
2) that what is being turned must be mounted centered on the lathe’s axis of rotation

What about other outlines? If you mounted an equilateral triangle, the maximum length of each side would be roughly 24"; that could be cut from material 20" wide. If you mounted a square, its maximum side would be roughly 20". Note that both triangle and square require material no more than 20" wide. Either would have considerably less area – would be smaller – than a disk yet max out a 28-29" swing.

Turning using an offset axis would further reduce the maximum achievable size of the end product, dramatically if the offset is sizable. For example, if a 16" disk were mounted with its center offset 6" (using a backing plate), it would require a minimum 28" swing. I’ve recently been doing such offset turning, starting with a 7-8" disk and mounting it using various offsets on a 12" backing disk. The end result is 6-7" in diameter. My lathe has a 25" swing, so scaling with these parameters, the maximum possible final diameter would perhaps 14".

In other words, I need a 25" swing to be able to make a 14" diameter end product.

 

[Rob Wyatt]

A friend turns some large platters some up to 36”. He puts a mounting on the back so they can be hung on the wall and they can always be displayed on a stand. Some just have a routed keyhole slot others various metal fixtures.

Thanks! I was hoping someone here did that kind of work or knows someone who does. Just curious, are his platters segmented? Because, as has been mentioned here, the challenges to turning a cookie of this size are great and side grain stock at that size must be hard to come by.

So it is obvious that you know the answer already.

More of a theory worked out from incomplete information, relatively little experience, and training that has consisted mainly of watching videos.

I work in IT Security where one of the key concepts is the anti-pattern. That's an intuitively obvious solution that turns out to be one of the worst things you can do and, at least in this field, can be catastrophic to the company. I don't know whether woodturning formally recognizes the same concept but it seems ripe for that. Mistakes can be catastrophic and I can easily imagine some of the bad ones turn out to be very common among newbies who intuit some technique that is as wrong as it gets. Maybe some of those include assuming risk scales linearly and that a 29" workpiece behaves like a 15" workpiece, only larger.

I know enough physics to intuit that it doesn't scale like that, so my guess turns out to have been in the right ballpark. And even with the consensus among replies, I feel like I have more confidence in the answer but not that I "know" it.

I can't imagine ever turning something 29" in diameter, but I may someday turn something a little bigger than my 16" swing. Moreover, the rotating headstock has a lot of other uses.

This is about where I am with it. When I turned that platter I rounded it on the bandsaw but still had to sand down high spots to get it to fit over the bed. It had about 1/16" clearance in spots when first mounted. I can easily see doing something else on that scale but an inch or three larger. And I've come to appreciate the swing in the headstock for certain bowls and boxes. If I ever buy another lathe it will have at least the swing of this one but if I see 30" on the outboard side I'm not getting excited.

 

[Rob Wyatt]

What about other outlines? If you mounted an equilateral triangle, the maximum length of each side would be roughly 24"; that could be cut from material 20" wide. If you mounted a square, its maximum side would be roughly 20". Note that both triangle and square require material no more than 20" wide. Either would have considerably less area – would be smaller – than a disk yet max out a 28-29" swing.

Turning using an offset axis would further reduce the maximum achievable size of the end product, dramatically if the offset is sizable. For example, if a 16" disk were mounted with its center offset 6" (using a backing plate), it would require a minimum 28" swing.

Most of my life I've been told "think outside the box" and now you want me to think outside the circle? ;-)

This is great stuff. Thanks!

When I was in training for programming on the mainframe (yes, I'm that old) the instructor told us it was possible to specify up to 128 temporary files for a sort job. Most of the time 4 or 5 are adequate and 128 is ridiculously large so I quipped that "you just know there's someone out there saying 'Damn! If only I had ONE more!'" Then later I worked for Equifax and had to sort the California driver license file, and I was that guy.

This seems a lot like that. Yes, 29" seems ridiculously large, but between the large platters @hockenbery talks about and the off-center/non-round pieces you posit, I actually can imagine someone out there looking at the 29" spec and saying "Damn! If only I had one more!" Still hard to imagine I will ever be that guy, though.

 

[R Henrickson]

Most of my life I've been told "think outside the box" and now you want me to think outside the circle? ;-)

This is great stuff. Thanks!

When I was in training for programming on the mainframe (yes, I'm that old) the instructor told us it was possible to specify up to 128 temporary files for a sort job. Most of the time 4 or 5 are adequate and 128 is ridiculously large so I quipped that "you just know there's someone out there saying 'Damn! If only I had ONE more!'" Then later I worked for Equifax and had to sort the California driver license file, and I was that guy.

This seems a lot like that. Yes, 29" seems ridiculously large, but between the large platters @hockenbery talks about and the off-center/non-round pieces you posit, I actually can imagine someone out there looking at the 29" spec and saying "Damn! If only I had one more!" Still hard to imagine I will ever be that guy, though.

"Think outside the circle" indeed -- I like that!

Perhaps the ultimate example of offset and multiaxis turning is Derek Weidman's sculpture done on the lathe. Lots of way offcenter mounting. You need a lot of swing for a moderate size project. Check out his work! I saw him do a number of demo rotations at an OVWG symposium some years ago and then took a class with him at Arrowmont. Don't say it can't be done on lathe, whatever 'it' may be.

Old days - my wife and I wrote our dissertations using line editors with embedded formatting commands on the mainframe, some of the time using a very slow dial-up modem, and printed on a line printer. Both were at least several hundred pages long. The defense copies of our dissertations were printed on track-fed paper. I figured when we tore off the track-feed holes from the 8-10 copies we needed, we had about a mile of strips. The cats enjoyed that. My wife finished hers just as the first laser printer was installed on the university system.

 

[Chris Lawrence]

You don't need solid wood to make something large. This guy makes large things by segmenting them. This one he makes a chair.

View: https://youtu.be/vT0LvoIYClw
Something like this would be a puckering moment for me but to each his own.

 

[hockenbery]

Just curious, are his platters segmented? Because, as has been mentioned here, the challenges to turning a cookie of this size are great and side grain stock at that size must be hard to come by.

Face grain.
We occasionally get trees over 4ft in diameter.
Huge camphor trees are the most common above that size and it is a great wood to work with.

 

[Tom Gall]

Large platters can use wall space instead of flat surfaces.
A friend turns some large platters some up to 36”. He puts a mounting on the back so they can be hung on the wall and they can always be displayed on a stand. Some just have a routed keyhole slot others various metal fixtures.

I like to turn a sort of "round" French cleat recess. A single screw on the wall and you have many orientation options .... 360º worth!

 

[Tom Gall]

All of these comments seem to make two assumptions –
1) that what you turn must be circular
2) that what is being turned must be mounted centered on the lathe’s axis of rotation

In other words, I need a 25" swing to be able to make a 14" diameter end product.

How true. I have a 20" swing on my lathe and sometimes I wished it was larger ... even though I don't usually turn anything near 20" in diameter. Over the years I've turned some off-center/multi-center wall pieces from rectangular boards. Sometimes my design options are limited because the corners of the board will hit the lathe bed.

 

[Rob Wyatt]

This guy makes large things by segmenting them.

Yup. That's the guy whose bowl video I linked, and this is the video where he turns the papasan chair I mentioned as being the only utility object I'd seen at this size. His other work is quite good as well and he's on my subscription list.

Perhaps the ultimate example of offset and multiaxis turning is Derek Weidman's sculpture done on the lathe.

I'm definitely looking him up later. Today though, I'm finishing the last of several pieces I'm shipping off to friends in New Zealand. I discovered that you get charged for 10 lbs minimum for the size box I'm using and when I found out what the shipping cost is I became determined to use every ounce of that 10 lbs. So it's off to the workshop for me and later tonight I'll explore the World of Weidman. Thanks for the tip.

Face grain.
We occasionally get trees over 4ft in diameter.
Huge camphor trees are the most common above that size and it is a great wood to work with.

You mentioned this is your friend turning these. Is he here in the forum with photos posted? Or maybe has a web site? I'd love to see some of the work. And I'll have to give camphor a try sometime. There's a Woodcraft near me and I've worked with almost all the species they normally carry so I might have to go online to find it.

 

[Richard Coers]

Lots of huge urban trees in my area. And many that my Husky with a 36" bar won't cut through.

 

[Leo Van Der Loo]

Vernon Leibrant turns very large bowls, did, I don't know if he still does, as he is about my age, and those pieces of wood do get pretty heavy as we get older .

He has a cubic yard of concrete with the spindle on it, you do need a large heavy lathe to turn those large lumps of wood, not one of those sidewinders that can't even turn a decent size bowl, but want those bragging rights of (it can turn 29") with some Chinese cast outrigger on the side.




I have turned a few large bowls in my younger years, Large Maple bowls and Sycamore.



Here is a 28" Maple crotch bowl and an other one in use on the floor /



Large. White Oak at the wood dump

 

[hockenbery]

You mentioned this is your friend turning these. Is he here in the forum with photos posted? Or maybe has a web site? I'd love to see some of the work. And I'll have to give camphor a try sometime.

This company has large blanks available. Pete Richardson the owner is holding a large platter. Not sure if he turned it.

Viable Lumber

Viable Lumber salvages urban trees in central Florida and gives them a second life as art, bowls, furniture, custom woodwork, live-edge slabs, bar tops, musical instruments and more.

www.viablelumber.com

Best I could find on a platter is Dave sanding the back of one shown here

IWCS - 2018-02-19 Winterfest Meeting at Lake Yale, Florida

www.woodcollectors.org

 

[Mike Johnson]

If you can turn large diameter pieces, there are a number of architectural pieces you can turn.
These are usually for custom built homes or high-end commercial properties.
Making yourself known to architects and interior designers will open the door to some of these jobs.
Large clock frames, window frames, coffee tables, picture frames, mirror frames, table bases, center pieces, floor inlays, ceiling trim rings, etc.

 

[Rob Wyatt]

Lots of huge urban trees in my area. And many that my Husky with a 36" bar won't cut through.

And here I was thinking big honking blanks like this were much rarer. Not that I have been looking for them. I've been sourcing some wood commercially and lots of green wood from scavenge, but those have been relatively small logs compared to the behemoth in your photo.

Here is a 28" Maple crotch bowl and an other one in use on the floor

Ah-ha! The firewood is a great use for the bowl on the floor. Now I'm starting to see some uses for the big stuff. Nice work on the big bowls. I love the cleat system. Is that a custom contoured edge guide attached to the tool rest in the photo with the cleats?

This company has large blanks available.

Cool! Thanks! I don't intend to use that 29" outboard swing but I really liked the 16" platter I turned over the bed and would love to do more around that size. We have an urban lumber specialty shop here in town. They have a mill, kilns, slab flattening sleds, and so forth. So far I've only seen 8/4 and smaller but I'll ask them about turning stock and also check out Viable.

Best I could find on a platter is Dave sanding the back of one shown here

Awesome! Thanks!

Large clock frames, window frames, coffee tables, picture frames, mirror frames, table bases, center pieces, floor inlays, ceiling trim rings, etc.

Thanks! Several of these were quite unexpected (for me, anyway). But I'm starting to get an idea of where and how large turnings are used.


Everything I've turned so far has been a utility piece of some sort. When I make a bowl, or a pen, a peppermill, measuring cups, drawer handles, or whatever, I can see in my mind's eye where that piece might go and what it's purpose in life is. Before getting back all of these great responses (thank you all, by the way!) that 29" spec on my lathe seemed like a black hole. Now I can see a lot more possibilities. I won't be doing anything at that scale any time soon but when I'm out in the world I'll keep an eye out for large turnings I have overlooked until now.

 

[Gerald Rutledge]

Another vote for the table.

With end grain, no matter if it is a bowl or table or something else, you will not have that nice figure displayed very well. Figure shows best on side grain. I am still waiting for my lathe (only four more days!), but I've worked with wood for a long time, done plenty of flatwork and so forth and I understand grain, how it shrinks and swells, how it sands, etc. rather well. That piece is going to want to fly apart when you put centrifugal force on it, and as already mentioned, it will want to crack in many directions even if you leave it as a slab.

End-grain also just really, really sucks to mill, work, and especially sand. It takes up finish in usually awful ways as well. And as I said, the nice figure you know is in there is going to stay mostly hidden.

If you simply must do something with it -- I get that, it's difficult to burn or compost something with "potential" -- I would suggest boring out the piths and replacing them with three legs of the same diameter as the original piths, trying also to replicate the same angles the pith runs through the log if it is feasible, and not necessarily the same diameter as each other, and make a table or ottoman out of it. I'd recommend leaving the surface rough/rustic, don't even bother removing the chain saw marks if they are reasonably tame. That just adds to the rustic look.

Another idea, depending on how thick it is, is to break it up into smaller pieces, remove the piths (again, always), and turn some small things on side grain. That way, you'll at least unlock the figure that you want to bring out.

 

[Gerald Rutledge]

One other thing to remember is that the area of a 29" circle is vastly greater than the area of a 6" circle. This translates directly into how much work you need to do (on end grain!) to get the piece completed. How much are you really in love with that beast? I know there are other intangibles that go into the decision and I cannot see the figure from here, but I can say that for myself, the wow-factor of seeing that giant bowl in my mind's eye with the awesome figure I know is inside there usually blinds me to this reality and many others (not having the right tooling, not having three weekends to invest, knowing that the figure might not actually be all that great, or the damn thing with the amazing figure and color is still poplar in the end and it's just annoying, furry wood and really no fun at all) until I have invested a couple of hours or days into the project and the reality comes crashing in that doing things "just because" is often a worthy goal in itself, particularly for artists and craftspersons, but sometimes it still just isn't worth it.

IMO, and it is subjective and personal, of course, is that since one really cannot unlock that figure in the current grain orientation you have there, one is likely to be disappointed halfway through and want their three to five hours back, hours that could have been spent on a blank with much more potential. If you just want to do a 29" piece, great, you be you, go for it, it will still be a learning experience, and all that, but maybe consider investing that same time in finding a more suitable blank with higher potential. I can never talk anyone out of loving a piece of wood, though. They have to come to that on their own. I've fallen in love with some real vampires that I ended up hating, but it doesn't happen every time; usually ends with a shrug and telling my better half "yeah, I know... <sigh> I'll go mow the lawn now".

 

[Rob Wyatt]

If you simply must do something with it

I should probably remove that photo in the OP since it illustrates the origin of the question and not the actual question. The thread starts out with me acknowledging that I'm not turning that beast as-is but may section it. I bit off more than I could chew.

That said, I appreciate the advice @Gerald Rutledge and will keep it in mind when I'm sectioning that cookie, or logs in general.

The possibility of making art at this scale seemed obvious to me from the start. My main goal from the thread was to find out what kind of utility objects are turned at this scale. When I look at my lathe I don't see just a tool but an element in a system that produces useful objects, and I see the life cycle of those objects as an extension of the lathe.

But when I started to seriously consider turning something at 29" I realized I had no vision of it. Turn the headstock 90 degrees and all I see is inert metal, and that bothered me. Without a system behind it, no vision for the utility of the objects produced at that scale, the lathe itself sort of "disappears."

[Oversharing section - feel free to skip this part]
I'm autistic and my learning process is to first understand the system and then decompose that to an understanding of the things that compose it. I'm told this is exactly the opposite of how most people first understand the elements and aggregate those to understand the system - or indeed can often disregard the system context and function just fine. This can be inconvenient sometimes. I had to learn how internal combustion engines worked and the functions of all the components before I could understand the process of changing my own oil. On the other hand, I make a good living in IT security specifically because an understanding of those systems and how they break is intuitive to me.

So when I say "turn the headstock 90 degrees and all I see is inert metal" I am being literal. With the headstock in the normal position I see a living breathing component of a vast system of utility objects and human activity. Until I saw @Leo Van Der Loo 's bowl of firewood and read @Mike Johnson 's list of architectural elements, turning the headstock to 90 degrees was like flipping a switch that transforms the lathe into an inert slug of metal. This was quite...unsettling...for me. I was having no luck Googling for the answer and the situation was severely impairing my relationship with my lathe so I came here for answers. And, to my immeasurable joy, got them. Thanks!
[End of oversharing section]

 

[Gerald Rutledge]

I saw that you had decided not to proceed after I made my post, but I left it there since it might give someone a tool to assess whether or not to invest in their own initially exciting, dangerous Maybe.

 

[Mike Johnson]

I turned several large diameter plywood pieces and trimmed several inches from the outer diameter to attain the diameter
I was needing for the project I was working on. I beveled the inner and outer edge of the ring before I parted it off of the work piece.
Basically, ended up with a super-sized hollow wood "Frisbee" throwing ring. With a good arm you can launch these rings several hundred yards.
As lethal as a boomerang, don't try to catch one of these.

 

[Rob Wyatt]

I left it there since it might give someone a tool to assess whether or not to invest in their own initially exciting, dangerous Maybe.

Yeah, the comment further up the thread about embedding a spindle in a cubic yard of concrete was sobering too.

As lethal as a boomerang, don't try to catch one of these.

Wow. Strap a few of those on your back and you can join the Avengers. The most lethal things I turn are pens. Word has it they are mightier than swords.

 

[Lou Jacobs]

Rob, thanks for over sharing! It helps me a lot to understand how you think and experience systems around you. We have a close relative who we are certain is on the spectrum (undiagnosed) and your comments help put in perspective how he operates, both in relationships (which some difficulty)and in his highly technical professional field (very successfully).

 

[Mark Jundanian]

@Rob Wyatt , at this point I have to ask what model lathe you have?

 

[Gerald Rutledge]

I bet it is a Nova Galaxi or immediate family, but that's because I have been in the shopping process recently, and I seem to remember that rather large number. (They do claim that number, I checked instead of just posting conjecture for a change). They may not be the only ones with that figure, but the substantially larger and more massive Laguna 18-36 only claims 32" of outboard swing, which is a smaller ratio of over-sizing. That's probably borderline unrealistic also. Could be safe, could work, likely makes the spindle and bearing cry. There is such a thing as stress fractures and metal fatigue, and one would do well to keep that in mind when mounting a FrankenBlank on a machine that starts wimpering as soon as that half-tree monstrosity rolls through the door on a dolley or engine crane.

The 14" lathe I eventually bought also claims to do 18" outboard on a rotated HS. I'm not even going to try that, at least not anytime soon. I wanted the rotated HS for improved access, mostly at later stages of work like finishing cuts and sanding, not to increase the blank size I can turn, and I don't plan on ever running an unbalanced 18" piece with the HS rotated. That just seems like asking a lot, and being off the vertical plane of the bed must be even more strenuous than turning an unsupported piece off the end of the bed where it is not torquing the bed rails as much and has more counterbalance by leveraging both the HS and the bed itself, while only the HS will counterbalance the piece when turning with a rotated HS.

IMO, sliding HS wins if you really are serious about over-sizing the work for the machine, while rotating HS wins if you are simply after getting more access to a piece that really should be balanced before you ever move the center of gravity away from the bed. The claims of monster-size blank potential are dangerous marketing hype, IMO, and throwing a piece off the end of the lather is likely going to hit the user more often that throwing the work off parallel to the bed, but it really just depends on where the hapless (foolish?) user is at that moment.

On that note, Galaxi is nice since it slides and rotates (and rotates 360 degrees too), best of both worlds, but I think the 29" outboard claim is unrealistic and unsafe for anything other than a balanced thin platter. That 14.5 inches of radius is a long torque arm. I am having a hard time finding the specs on the mass of that lathe, but it is not a 600-lb gorilla. I'm not trashing the lathe itself, just the overblown marketing.

 

[Rob Wyatt]

thanks for over sharing!

Glad you found it insightful. I thought it might be a bit off topic but hoped it would be tolerable in my own thread, and to dive deeper I can direct folks off the forum so as not to hijack it any further. For example here is another post that gives a peek into the clockworks.

your comments help put in perspective how he operates

I'm glad! My only caution would be not to assume that my experience is representative. In the community there's a saying that "if you've met one autistic person, you've met ONE autistic person."

In management-speak, "T-shaped skillset" means broad competency with deep specialty. My path to that starts broad (internal combustion engines) then goes deep (change oil). Many autistics begin with deep specialty, developing into broad competency. IT tends to have both the "general specialist" types and the "special generalist" types. Both arrive at the T-shaped skill set but the paths getting there are very different.

 

[Rob Wyatt]

I have to ask what model lathe you have?

I bet it is a Nova Galaxi or immediate family

Bingo. Nova Saturn.

That just seems like asking a lot, and being off the vertical plane of the bed must be even more strenuous than turning an unsupported piece off the end of the bed where it is not torquing the bed rails as much and has more counterbalance by leveraging both the HS and the bed itself, while only the HS will counterbalance the piece when turning with a rotated HS.

Yeah, I agree that the physics of this practically scream for keeping the spindle aligned with the bed and using the weight behind the sliding headstock to stabilize the whole thing. I'm guessing that the "cubic yard of concrete" setup relied in part on the spindle itself being rather long with the rear bearing some distance away from the mounting point.

sliding HS wins if you really are serious about over-sizing the work for the machine, while rotating HS wins if you are simply after getting more access to a piece that really should be balanced before you ever move the center of gravity away from the bed

That was my take when I bought it. At the time the marketing was still defining my idea of what was possible so I liked the idea of large workpieces but lacked the experience to set a more realistic expectation. On the other hand, I absolutely knew I'd want to rotate the headstock and why I'd need to do so. I've used that frequently, starting early in my woodturning journey.

I'm not trashing the lathe itself, just the overblown marketing.

Agreed. In fact, one way to increase that number is to give the legs a narrower stance which would make the lathe marginally less stable. I would not be surprised to find out that some marketer pitched the idea, or even that it was implemented (hopefully over the objections of the engineers) to some degree.

"Move the legs in a bit and we can legit say there's 29" of swing in this thing."

"That's much too large a workpiece for the tolerances of the bearings and attach points."

"Not if you are turning plywood. There's folks out there who want to make lethal frisbee rings. That's an untapped market!"

"How much narrower do we need to make them?"